


Extravagant Torture

by everheartings



Series: A Rabbit in a Snare [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Other, Polyamory, Threesome - F/M/M, Trichotillomania, warning for hair pulling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-19 03:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/878980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everheartings/pseuds/everheartings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan's own worst enemy is himself (it's so easy to fall into a trap when it's sweet like sugar and feels like heaven).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Extravagant Torture

**Author's Note:**

> Once again a huge thanks to my beta, Amy.

It starts with a touch (it always does).

A careless hand tugging at his hair (was it Bahorel? Or perhaps Bossuet? Jehan doesn’t remember; the memory was drowned out by the itch skittering across his scalp). One tug and that’s all it takes. Jehan does his best to resist the temptation. He makes it through the meeting with a tense smile and rigid hands—he  keeps thinking _not here, just wait until you get home, twenty more minutes, ten more minutes, only five more and then you can go home and pull_. When Cosette compliments his hair Jehan does his best not to laugh, choking out a rough “thank you,” before rushing out of the café.

He stumbles up to his apartment, his twitching hands making it difficult to put the key into the lock. The door finally creaks open and he rushes inside. His hands have wrapped around the edges of a book by the time the door slams shut. He opens the book to a random page and lowers himself to the floor. He tries to let the poetry calm him, but before long his hands find his way up to his head. The book slides from his lap and strands of hair fall across the pages. The thump of the book against the floor breaks Jehan from his trance. Even so, it takes a minute for his hands to still in his hair (it takes no time at all for guilt to set in).

Jehan fists his hands into his hair (a dangerous place for his hands to be at the moment, but he can’t bring himself to lower them). He should pull them out, shove them beneath his thighs, because the prickling is still there crawling over his scalp, eating away at him—but he doesn’t. He lets them rest heavy against his head. After all, what’s the difference, hands in his hair or out? It doesn’t change a damn thing. There are already strands of hair curling across Jehan’s lap.  Chunks really, whole clumps of ginger hair, some stubby, some long, all of them a painful reminder. They are almost worse than the prickling of his scalp and the feeling of his fingers hunting out the next hair (almost, but not quite).

He hadn’t wanted to go back to that place—where books get shoved aside and pencils roll across the floor, forgotten. That place where he tilts his head at just the right angle so he can pull, even if it makes his neck cramp. Where his scalp itches and bleeds, where his fingers grow sore. Where everything fades away except for the pull and how he’ll do anything to get it (Jehan’s tried picturing his compulsion as a beast at his side and that he is its master—it is something to control, to defeat. Yet it is times like this when Jehan comes to realize that it’s the beast which masters him). But it’s easy to fall back into old habits when your goals are set too far out of reach (Jehan’s goal is a long ways away from obtainable. He was stupid to think he could defeat this, that he could ever achieve that shining, happy place where he would never pull again).

Jehan rocks forward, pulling his knees to his chin and falling to the side. There’s the edge of a book digging into his ribs. He ignores it. The floor is cold against his cheek. He ignores that too (he had been so good; two months, _two_ _whole_ _months_ ). Then there’s the quick, wet blinking of his eyes and the thick cotton constriction of his throat that he can’t ignore. The vicious circling chorus of _failure, failure, failure_ that makes its way around his head is too loud to shut out. His shoulders curl inwards, shaking as his hands fist and yank and pull. It hurts more than a punch to the stomach ever could—physical pain has nothing on the feeling of this downward spiral he’s in (he deserves it, Jehan thinks).

Jehan’s fingers run across his hair, littered with carefully hidden bald patches (shear one side short, layer the other, keep his hands busy, and hope no one sees. This is still a private shame, unlike the other pieces of him). He can feel where he’s pulled a new patch and destroyed an old one that had been growing so well. But even now Jehan feels his finger catch on a hair, feels the root of the hair in his skin—it needs to go. Now. (There’s the quiet cry of _no, you’ll regret this, hand down, please, just please, don’t pull,_ but that whisper of _just one more won’t hurt_ has pulled Jehan under, sweeter than the weight of his blade in his hand).

And his fingers do their worst. Pulling, tugging, twisting, whatever it takes. He curses as he loses his grip on thin group of hairs clasped between his thumb and middle finger. He clenches his teeth in concentration, his right hand running along the length of the strands and his left fishing out the unwanted hairs. He presses his fingers together and pulls, before twisting his lips in frustration. Jehan moves his hands from the side of his head to the front, toying with his bangs, and then slipping over to pull at the stubby hairs growing in one of his bald patches. His eyes focus in on the pattern of the rug on the floor (Montparnasse had procured it _somewhere_ —which meant no place good—back when they had just bought the apartment. Éponine had spilt cheap wine on it nearly five minutes after it had been set out. Jehan kissed the anger off both their faces. It had been a good night).

There’s just the quiet sound of his breathing and the soft rustle of his hair. He traps a strand of hair between his thumb and forefinger. He wiggles and tugs. His breath hitches in his throat. His eyes flutter shut. Then there’s the _feeling—_ just a little bit sharp and thin—almost the one he can’t get enough of, but not quite.

He holds up the strand of hair, right hand pinching it tightly, the fingers of his left hand running methodically across the length of the hair. Jehan mashes his lips together when he sees the root. He already knew by the feel that he’d get a white one, but he could hope (those are no fun; the inky black ones are the best. They get the best pull, slow and thick like honey, and feel soft and round against his skin). Still he runs his finger over the end, feeling the root tickle across his finger—it doesn’t bend like the black ones do, but a smile still twitches across his face (this is better than any fist fight).

His fingers slip and the strand floats to the floor, curling in with the rest. Jehan watches it settle. His smile slips from his face. His stomach drops. The fear sets in again ( _I don’t want to go bald, I don’t want to go bald, I don’t want to go bald_ ). His hands fall from their place in his hair and hit the ground with a thump. Wispy ginger strands are curled around his fingers, unwilling to say goodbye just yet. His shoulders tremble (just like any other high, there’s the crash).

Jehan is still curled up on the ground when Éponine comes home. The click of the door shutting is too loud in his ears. He hears the way her steps quicken when she sees him. She kneels next to him, wrapping her arms around him as she pulls him into her lap. Jehan _knows_ she sees the tangled mess of hair around him, sees the bald patches to his hair. Jehan knows that Éponine can see his failure and it _kills_ him that she knows (this is his private shame, she shouldn’t have to deal with this, shouldn’t know about this). But still, even though she knows that he’s a _failure_ , she presses her body to his.

Éponine presses kisses across his forehead and down his cheek. Her hands burrow into the fabric of his sweater. She’s murmuring poetry into Jehan’s ears, poems she’s heard from his lips so many times she knows them by heart, whispering so fast he can’t barely make them out (and this reminds him of back in high school when Marius started dating Cosette and Éponine climbed up to his window and into his room and had cried and Jehan had held her and whispered promises of how he’d beat the living shit out of Marius if only she’d stop crying. But the thing hurting Jehan is himself so it’s not as simple as giving Marius a black eye and a fat lip).

When the tremble in his limbs subsides and his mouth is able to be used for more than broken gasping, Jehan speaks. His tongue is thick and his voice is cracked (he looks nothing like that wild creature of the streets, all puffy eyed and red faced. It’s all gone now, his wildness).

“I think,” he says in a tight whisper, “you should trim the other side of my head now.”

And it is done.

Montparnasse comes home to Éponine sweeping away chunks of ginger hair into the trash. She sends him a tight smile, then glances over at Jehan. He’s sitting limply on a stool, shoulders slumped and arms dangling. His eyes are focused on the ground. He doesn’t say hello.

Montparnasse moves to stand in front of Jehan. “Hey,” he says. Jehan doesn’t say anything in return. Montparnasse reaches out his hand and ruffles Jehan’s hair. It’s shorter now, fluffy and tufted. It sticks up in the front and it looks a little silly; if it was anyone else with that sad expression and that haircut Montparnasse would have laughed and asked if they intended to look like a shaved dog or was their hair stylist just that drunk. But this was Jehan. So he doesn’t (he’s always softened himself for Jehan, just a bit. He tries to not to dwell on it).

“It looks nice,” Montparnasse says, “Right out of the pages of a couture magazine”. Jehan huffs, turning his head away. His hands ball into fists.

“I hate it.” Jehan’s voice is flat. He opens his mouth to continue, but now Montparnasse has that _I-want-a-new-designer-jacket-and-I-will-gut-you-to-get-it_ look that, among other things, has kept the three of them in their tiny apartment under the radar.

“Éponine,” Montparnasse says, and she stops her sweeping (Éponine knows where he’s going with this; she thinks that maybe, deep inside of his chest, Montparnasse has a heart). “I think you should cut my hair like Jehan’s. I bet it’s going to be all the rage at this year’s fashion week.” There’s a cut to his words like he’s going to make _fucking_ sure it’s on every runway model during this year’s fashion week or kill some people trying (neither Éponine nor Jehan question where the designer clothes Montparnasse wears come from—things he couldn’t even dream to afford from his work at the tattoo parlor, no matter how much he makes. And if some of the presents Montparnasse receives gets passed along into their hands, all the better).

Montparnasse tugs at the rubber band holding up his hair and rolls it onto his wrist. “Besides,” he continues, “It looks much better than that shitty hipster haircut that seems to be making the rounds. I swear every teenager that walks in wanting a _fucking_ infinity tattoo looks like they’ve been without a shower for a week and then forgot how to use scissors.” Montparnasse snorts. “It’s revolting.”

Montparnasse grabs the scissors Éponine had discarded on the table. He holds them out to her with a shake of his arm. His jaw is clenched and his fist is clenched, but when his eyes meet Éponine’s there’s sincerity there. So she takes the scissors in her hands (she feels like she should say something to try to dissuade him, to try to pull Jehan back from whatever mental ledge he’s standing on, but she has nothing left to say).

Jehan reaches his hand out and catches Montparnasse’s sleeve. His fingers are limp, his voice quiet. “You don’t,” Jehan’s voice catches and he swallows, “You don’t have to do this. This is my problem, not yours. Don’t do something stupid just to try to make me feel better.” His lips mash together in a thin line and his fingers tighten. Montparnasse sighs.

“Jehan, when have I ever done anything I hadn’t wanted to?” he asks. Jehan starts to answer, only to huff in frustration. Montparnasse smirks. “ _Exactly_. Now shut the fuck up and let Éponine cut my hair.” He shakes Jehan’s hand from its grip on his sleeve and pulls up a chair.

The air is filled with the snipping of scissors and tufts of black hair drift to the floor (Éponine is kind, knowing that Montparnasse is a vain creature. She does her best to make him look nice. Still it is a marked change from the black ponytail set high on his head).

Later, clothes littered across the ground and sheets tangled, Éponine curls into Montparnasse. She lets her head rest against his shoulder. Jehan is pressed against her back, thin arms wrapped around her waist (she misses the tickle of hair falling across her face and pressing into her back. She won’t say it though. It’s a private thought). Éponine waits until she knows for sure that Jehan is asleep before she mumbles sleepily to Montparnasse.

“I thought you said the day you cut your hair would be the day your vanity died?” Montparnasse snorts (his hands tangle in Éponine’s hair. He had reached up to push back hanks of hair that were no longer there once or twice that night. He had settled for pulling Éponine’s hair instead).

“Don’t you worry, Ms. Crooked-Teeth, I still have enough vanity for the both of us,” he replies. Éponine looks up to meet Montparnasse’s eyes. He’s smiling, but she can see how it’s much too soft for him—it should be sharp and biting, not quiet and resigned.

“You okay?” Éponine asks, her voice a whisper (Montparnasse’s hand tightens in her hair).

“Yeah,” he swallows and looks at Jehan, “I’m just fine.” He reaches over and ruffles Jehan’s hair (he does his best to ignore sparse feeling of bald patches beneath his fingers, but he can’t quite drive it from his mind).

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by many nights of tears, trichy-ness and frustration with myself. Failure hurts, especially after being good for so long. So this kinda just happened. I didn't have any real intention of posting it, but I decided I shouldn't let it go to waste.


End file.
